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Using smart meters, the cars would charge during off-peak hours and the batteries would be used as storage units for the company to draw from during peak demand periods.

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This is so-called vehicle-to-grid concept where unused car-battery capacity is being used to help overcome huge daily power-demand spikes. Now installed power has to suffice for the highest power-demand spikes or power-outages occure. In off-peak hours all this install power goes unused. With V2G some energy produced overnight could help feed those spikes. It is almost free lunch All we need is lots of BEVs and smart grid.

What nobody seems to mention is battery degradation. Will this scheme pay me enough to cover the wear-and-tear it inflicts on my car's battery? I doubt it. Of course everyone is hoping for improved batteries in a few years. If that comes about, then it might make sense.

When you have LiIon batteries which degrade when unused, you may also use them as much and as cleverly as possible and maximise your investemnt.
How much you get out of V2G, remains to be seen. Peaple probably won't get rich in this way for some time to come.

We can keep going with the list but the bottom line is Big Oil is gonna go after their money. I'm just surprised that they haven't bought out alternative energy companies...yet. Most of them are probably just waiting for the smaller companies to "test the waters". Just like the rest of us...waiting for someone else to give us the electric car.

Through this forum and word of mouth, education will hopefully change people's attitudes. Tesla hit it right on the mark with their business case --> to change people's attitudes.

For those who can't wait they can do their own research to convert or make their own electric car and they can probably get paid for it too.

I know the state of Illinois has a program where you can receive a $4,000 rebate from the IL EPA when you convert a gas-burning car to electric.

I have not seen the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?", but gathering from what people have posted about the movie, I agree with some people on this forum that there is no one to blame but the public itself. The American public need to wake up and think for themselves.

I guess what I'm trying to say is stop blaming and start acting. You say that something is wrong because PG&E is currently an oil based company, but I say that things are finally going the way it is supposed to be - a switch from oil to the alternative.

I'm sorry, I did not mean to chide or admonish. It's just that I'm tired of negative attitudes. I joined this forum in hopes of sustaining the positive energy that Tesla initiated.

Here in Texas we produce lots of coal and natural gas. However. . . Texas recently surpassed California as the state producing most electrical power from wind turbines. I'm told the bureaucracy in California makes it very tough to get permission to do anything, even put up wind turbines.

The big energy company here is TXU. They had been planning to build 11 new coal-fired power plants. Environmental groups fought them and eventually organized a buyout offer that will take TXU private and cancel 8 of those coal plants.

Now I learned TXU has also placed an order with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for two of the biggest nuclear power plants they offer. I'm not sure how the environmental groups feel about that, but I'm all for it.

"Between 1999 and 2003, Chevron invested approximately $110 million per year in renewable energy, alternative energy, and energy efficiency. "

An "energy" company that makes multiple billions of profit per year re-investing that little says to me that they are more interested in maximizing their oil profits FIRST, and then after that runs out we'll figure something else out.